Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [106]
I turned to Jillian. “What did you think—” But she’d disappeared.
“Boy, that brings back memories,” Gabe said behind me.
I turned, surprised to see him standing there. “I didn’t hear you come up. Wasn’t that amazing? Dolores certainly raised our collective blood pressure a notch or two.”
“My grandma Ortiz used to tell about La Llarona. She’d wait until my parents had gone out with my aunts and uncles and she’d tell us kids scary stories. Her version was different, though. It was more along the lines of we’d better obey our parents, or the weeping woman would get us. Hers had seaweed hair and was betrayed by a sea captain. She’d scare the pants off us kids, then warn us not to tell our parents what she’d said. My mother, for the life of her, couldn’t figure out why we’d be too afraid to go to sleep without a light for weeks after visiting California. I think my dad knew, but he never said anything.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. “He just let you go on being scared?”
Gabe laughed. “He grew up hearing those stories and he survived. I guess he figured that our fear was nothing compared to the fear he had of being in a fight between his mother and his wife.”
I laughed in agreement. “Smart man.” I looked back at the empty hay bale, wondering about Jillian.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, his senses instantly alert to the perplexed look on my face.
“Jillian was sitting next to me, then she was gone. I guess she must have left during Dolores’s performance. Or right after.”
“So?”
“I don’t know, it bothers me. She and Dolores haven’t been getting along that well, kinda arguing over Ash Stanhill, and then Dolores told this story. Maybe it was a subtle threat to Jillian.”
“I think you’re letting all this spookiness get to you. Reality check, mi corazón.” He tapped my head with his knuckles.
“And what reality might that be, Friday?”
“Two women catfighting over some man that neither will probably want next week.”
I slugged his arm. “Catfighting? That remark is going in your permanent file under sexist remarks. Which, I might add, is getting quite extensive.”
“Oh, no,” he said, feigning horror. “Not my permanent file.”
It was after midnight when Gabe and I got home. Dove had long since gone to bed, though her evening’s activities were still apparent, with three different versions of the Bible and a Bible dictionary spread out on the kitchen table. Rita had, of course, still not come in. Neither had Sam. I’d glimpsed Rita a few times tonight with Ash and a group of people and I’d assumed they’d gone barhopping. That made me think of Jillian again. Just how involved were she and Ash? And how did Dolores fit into the equation? How were they all involved with this? Or were they? Maybe Gabe was right and the spooky stories really were affecting my imagination.
“What time should I set the alarm?” Gabe asked.
“I should be there before ten. Make it eight.” I yawned and crawled under the covers. “I don’t know if I can stay up this late again tomorrow night and still function. I don’t see how Sam and Rita do it.”
“Youth,” Gabe answered, catching my yawn.
Sometime during the early-morning hours, I woke up and with the insomnia brought on by anxiety, couldn’t get back to sleep. The bedside clock read four-fifteen. Next to me, Gabe lay deep in sleep. I eased out of bed and pulled my thick terry robe over my T-shirt. Slinking through the living room where Sam was sleeping, I slipped into the kitchen, closing the door behind me. As I heated a mug of almond milk I sat at the kitchen table and looked over Dove’s books. She and Garnet were apparently heavy into Proverbs now. I glanced at the page in the Bible subject index that Dove had marked lightly with a pencil. She’d made it as far as the K’s. The line she’d copied on notebook paper was under the